The Federalist No. 59

Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members

New York PacketFriday, February 22, 1788 [Alexander
Hamilton]

To the People of the State of New York:

THE
natural order of the subject leads us to consider, in this place, that provision
of the Constitution which authorizes the national legislature to regulate, in
the last resort, the election of its own members. It is in these words: "The
times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and
representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof;
but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter
such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators."1 This provision has not only
been declaimed against by those who condemn the Constitution in the gross, but
it has been censured by those who have objected with less latitude and greater
moderation; and, in one instance it has been thought exceptionable by a
gentleman who has declared himself the advocate of every other part of the
system.

I am greatly mistaken, notwithstanding, if there be any
article in the whole plan more completely defensible than this. Its propriety
rests upon the evidence of this plain proposition, that every government
ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation. Every just
reasoner will, at first sight, approve an adherence to this rule, in the work of
the convention; and will disapprove every deviation from it which may not appear
to have been dictated by the necessity of incorporating into the work some
particular ingredient, with which a rigid conformity to the rule was
incompatible. Even in this case, though he may acquiesce in the necessity, yet
he will not cease to regard and to regret a departure from so fundamental a
principle, as a portion of imperfection in the system which may prove the seed
of future weakness, and perhaps anarchy.

It will not be alleged, that an election law could have
been framed and inserted in the Constitution, which would have been always
applicable to every probable change in the situation of the country; and it will
therefore not be denied, that a discretionary power over elections ought to
exist somewhere. It will, I presume, be as readily conceded, that there were
only three ways in which this power could have been reasonably modified and
disposed: that it must either have been lodged wholly in the national
legislature, or wholly in the State legislatures, or primarily in the latter and
ultimately in the former. The last mode has, with reason, been preferred by the
convention. They have submitted the regulation of elections for the federal
government, in the first instance, to the local administrations; which, in
ordinary cases, and when no improper views prevail, may be both more convenient
and more satisfactory; but they have reserved to the national authority a right
to interpose, whenever extraordinary circumstances might render that
interposition necessary to its safety.

Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power
of regulating elections for the national government, in the hands of the State
legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy.
They could at any moment annihilate it, by neglecting to provide for the choice
of persons to administer its affairs. It is to little purpose to say, that a
neglect or omission of this kind would not be likely to take place. The
constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is
an unanswerable objection. Nor has any satisfactory reason been yet assigned for
incurring that risk. The extravagant surmises of a distempered jealousy can
never be dignified with that character. If we are in a humor to presume abuses
of power, it is as fair to presume them on the part of the State governments as
on the part of the general government. And as it is more consonant to the rules
of a just theory, to trust the Union with the care of its own existence, than to
transfer that care to any other hands, if abuses of power are to be hazarded on
the one side or on the other, it is more rational to hazard them where the power
would naturally be placed, than where it would unnaturally be placed.

Suppose an article had been introduced into the
Constitution, empowering the United States to regulate the elections for the
particular States, would any man have hesitated to condemn it, both as an
unwarrantable transposition of power, and as a premeditated engine for the
destruction of the State governments? The violation of principle, in this case,
would have required no comment; and, to an unbiased observer, it will not be
less apparent in the project of subjecting the existence of the national
government, in a similar respect, to the pleasure of the State governments. An
impartial view of the matter cannot fail to result in a conviction, that each,
as far as possible, ought to depend on itself for its own preservation.

As an objection to this position, it may be remarked that
the constitution of the national Senate would involve, in its full extent, the
danger which it is suggested might flow from an exclusive power in the State
legislatures to regulate the federal elections. It may be alleged, that by
declining the appointment of Senators, they might at any time give a fatal blow
to the Union; and from this it may be inferred, that as its existence would be
thus rendered dependent upon them in so essential a point, there can be no
objection to intrusting them with it in the particular case under consideration.
The interest of each State, it may be added, to maintain its representation in
the national councils, would be a complete security against an abuse of the
trust.

This argument, though specious, will not, upon
examination, be found solid. It is certainly true that the State legislatures,
by forbearing the appointment of senators, may destroy the national government.
But it will not follow that, because they have a power to do this in one
instance, they ought to have it in every other. There are cases in which the
pernicious tendency of such a power may be far more decisive, without any motive
equally cogent with that which must have regulated the conduct of the convention
in respect to the formation of the Senate, to recommend their admission into the
system. So far as that construction may expose the Union to the possibility of
injury from the State legislatures, it is an evil; but it is an evil which could
not have been avoided without excluding the States, in their political
capacities, wholly from a place in the organization of the national government.
If this had been done, it would doubtless have been interpreted into an entire
dereliction of the federal principle; and would certainly have deprived the
State governments of that absolute safeguard which they will enjoy under this
provision. But however wise it may have been to have submitted in this instance
to an inconvenience, for the attainment of a necessary advantage or a greater
good, no inference can be drawn from thence to favor an accumulation of the
evil, where no necessity urges, nor any greater good invites.

It may be easily discerned also that the national
government would run a much greater risk from a power in the State legislatures
over the elections of its House of Representatives, than from their power of
appointing the members of its Senate. The senators are to be chosen for the
period of six years; there is to be a rotation, by which the seats of a third
part of them are to be vacated and replenished every two years; and no State is
to be entitled to more than two senators; a quorum of the body is to consist of
sixteen members. The joint result of these circumstances would be, that a
temporary combination of a few States to intermit the appointment of senators,
could neither annul the existence nor impair the activity of the body; and it is
not from a general and permanent combination of the States that we can have any
thing to fear. The first might proceed from sinister designs in the leading
members of a few of the State legislatures; the last would suppose a fixed and
rooted disaffection in the great body of the people, which will either never
exist at all, or will, in all probability, proceed from an experience of the
inaptitude of the general government to the advancement of their happiness -- in
which event no good citizen could desire its continuance.

But with regard to the federal House of Representatives,
there is intended to be a general election of members once in two years. If the
State legislatures were to be invested with an exclusive power of regulating
these elections, every period of making them would be a delicate crisis in the
national situation, which might issue in a dissolution of the Union, if the
leaders of a few of the most important States should have entered into a
previous conspiracy to prevent an election.

I shall not deny, that there is a degree of weight in the
observation, that the interests of each State, to be represented in the federal
councils, will be a security against the abuse of a power over its elections in
the hands of the State legislatures. But the security will not be considered as
complete, by those who attend to the force of an obvious distinction between the
interest of the people in the public felicity, and the interest of their local
rulers in the power and consequence of their offices. The people of America may
be warmly attached to the government of the Union, at times when the particular
rulers of particular States, stimulated by the natural rivalship of power, and
by the hopes of personal aggrandizement, and supported by a strong faction in
each of those States, may be in a very opposite temper. This diversity of
sentiment between a majority of the people, and the individuals who have the
greatest credit in their councils, is exemplified in some of the States at the
present moment, on the present question. The scheme of separate confederacies,
which will always nultiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait
to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable
of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal. With so
effectual a weapon in their hands as the exclusive power of regulating elections
for the national government, a combination of a few such men, in a few of the
most considerable States, where the temptation will always be the strongest,
might accomplish the destruction of the Union, by seizing the opportunity of
some casual dissatisfaction among the people (and which perhaps they may
themselves have excited), to discontinue the choice of members for the federal
House of Representatives. It ought never to be forgotten, that a firm union of
this country, under an efficient government, will probably be an increasing
object of jealousy to more than one nation of Europe; and that enterprises to
subvert it will sometimes originate in the intrigues of foreign powers, and will
seldom fail to be patronized and abetted by some of them. Its preservation,
therefore ought in no case that can be avoided, to be committed to the
guardianship of any but those whose situation will uniformly beget an immediate
interest in the faithful and vigilant performance of the trust.